Professor Keith Ray

Honorary Professor in Archaeology

School of History, Archaeology and Religion

I have had 50 years’ active involvement in archaeology, both through an academic career (PhD Cambridge, 1988, on the archaeology of Igbo Ukwu, eastern Nigeria), and a teaching post in the University of Nigeria (1982-4), and through hands-on professional conservation and outreach employment. Between 1989 and 2014 I worked as an Archaeological Officer in Oxfordshire and then Plymouth, and then as County Archaeologist in Herefordshire (see ‘biography’ tab). I have undertaken fieldwork in southern Britain (especially, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Herefordshire), in Scotland (Aberdeenshire, Arran, Stirlingshire), and Wales (Ceredigion). I have worked overseas in France, Norway and West Africa.

I currently work part-time as an archaeological consultant (Director, Southern Marches Archaeological Practice, Hereford), but otherwise I am actively engaged in research (see ‘Research’ tab) and in writing (see ‘Publications’).

Publications

Selected recent publications:

2018 a (with Julian Thomas) Neolithic Britain: The transformation of social worlds (Oxford University Press)
2018 b ‘Herefordshire in Roman Britain’, 83-114 in Roger White and Mike Hodder (eds) Clash of Cultures? The Romano-British Period in the West Midlands (Oxbow)
2018 c ‘Material Metaphor’ entry in S Lopez-Varela The Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences eMRW (Wiley)
2017 (with Peter Dorling and Paul White) ‘Herefordshire: from the Middle Bronze Age to the Later Iron Age’, 70-84 in Derek Hurst (ed) Westward on the High-Hilled Plains: The Later Prehistory of the West Midlands (Oxbow)
2016 ‘Prehistoric and Roman Hereford’ and ‘Anglo-Saxon Hereford’, 1-28 in Andy Johnson and Ron Shoesmith (eds) The Story of Hereford (Logaston Press)
2016 (with Ian Bapty) Offa’s Dyke: Landscape and Hegemony in Eighth Century Britain (Windgather/Oxbow, Oxford)
2015 The Archaeology of Herefordshire: An Exploration (Logaston Press)

Current publication projects:

I am currently editing/co-writing a series of monographs for the series Herefordshire Studies in Archaeology (Archaeopress, Oxford) arising from the project-based fieldwork of Herefordshire Archaeology (and some archaeological contractors) between 1999 and 2010.

I have active research interests in the following areas:

Archaeological interpretive theory, especially concerning material culture and social practice, material metaphor, and temporality
Neolithic Britain
The archaeology of the early church in Wales and the Marches
The landscape history and archaeology of Herefordshire
Offa’s Dyke and the archaeology and history of Anglo-Saxon Mercia and Wales

Current research projects:

Beneath Hay Bluff/Dorstone Hill prehistory project (co-Directed with Professor Julian Thomas, Manchester University)
Offa’s Dyke (in progress and in development, currently involving ‘impact’ field surveying and excavation, in part with local heritage groups, especially in Flintshire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire)

Education

MA (Archaeology and Anthropology) Cambridge University, 1977
PhD (Archaeology) 1988

Employment

Director, Ceredigion Archaeological Survey Project, St David’s University College, Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales (1986-88)
Archaeological Officer, Oxfordshire County Council Museums and Libraries Service, County Museum, Woodstock (1989-91)
City Archaeological Officer, Plymouth City Council (1992-98)
County Archaeologist, Herefordshire Council (1998-2014)
Director (p/t), Nexus Heritage archaeological consultancy, Chester (2014-17)
Director (p/t), Southern Marches Archaeological Practice Ltd, Hereford (2017-)

Honours and awards

2005 Member, Chartered Institute for Archaeologists
2006 Fellow, Society of Antiquaries of London
2007 MBE (New Years Honours list, 2007, for services to archaeology in Herefordshire)